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Comment: John Humphrys: No human right can compete with the right to cheap flights

You have to feel sorry for the hollow-eyed folk who live near Heathrow. They went to court because they can’t sleep at night and their case was thrown out. It’s partly their own fault. If they choose to live near an airport, what can they expect? Especially if it’s Heathrow airport, which has been there a very long time.

Anyway, there aren’t that many night flights — an average of 16. But they’re almost all between 4.30 and 6.30 in the morning. The experts tell us that if we are not in a deep sleep at 4am it is seriously bad for us. You start dozing off again after the first jet wakes you up, only to get woken again by the next. Then you might as well give up and find something else to do — such as firing off a letter to BAA, the airports authority. The sleep-deprived residents tried